XWord Muggles Forum

I got nothin'. Gonna be happy with the chance to watch (from some great seats) my 'Hoos beating the evil ones from Durham Saturday night, and regroup for next Thursday. Congrats to all who saw what just refuses to click for me.

The tile is correct: two plus two equal five . . . for very large values of two.

Shoosh, made it ashore, just under the wire.

Threw my Hail Mary
Not all that sure
It’s a bit late but I’ll head to the beach

To paraphrase Charlotte from Charlotte's Web -- this was TOTALly sum puzzle!

Oh my Gawd
Like, TOTALly
Bodacious and Gnarly

17A: QUEENANNE = QU + AN + T = 19A QUANT
26A: GUESTSTAR = GU + ST + O = 44A GUSTO
40A: EXPENSEACCOUNTS = EX+ AC + T = 1A EXACT
48A: COMMONCORE = CO + CO + A = 48D COCOA
64A: SEARCHOUT = SE + OU + L = 55D SEOUL

the + single letters spell "a word heard in math class": TOTAL

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 10:41 pm The tile is correct: two plus two equal five . . . for very large values of two.

only on Leap Day

I spent so much time on (2)001 Tatou(2) movie and two(2) in tu(2)valu - the numbers of those clues 6D and 46D added up to 52D ONEal... sigh. Naturally the answer was so much simpler.

Scott Medvetz wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 10:37 pm I got nothin'. Gonna be happy with the chance to watch (from some great seats) my 'Hoos beating the evil ones from Durham Saturday night, and regroup for next Thursday. Congrats to all who saw what just refuses to click for me.

Seeing UVa beat Duke (on TV) brought more satisfaction to me than getting this week's meta --- seeing it live would surpass even winning the mug.

In some respects this is a great meta.

When I got it, I posted "Aha."

Should have posted "Duh."

So easy after you see it.

I actually stared at the all of the qu combos and thought of quadratic etc. Then while lying down without the puzzle thought of Queen Anne and Quant and then the rest was obvious.


Richard

jag wrote: ↑Sun Mar 01, 2020 8:47 pm I am still at sea (granted, without much time this weekend to work on this). Making one last effort here, with my terrier by my side on the couch, to plumb a couple more rabbit holes...

i made it to shore last night, just before the deadline. Guess my dog really did help!

Gusto, exact... Aargghh!
No mug for my Seoul cocoa
But quant meta though

Richard wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 1:48 amThen while lying down without the puzzle thought of Queen Anne and Quant and then the rest was obvious.

QUeen ANne & quanT turned the trick, here, too.

Afterward, I wondered if 19A QUANT was a generous gift or the beginning of an abandoned attempt to tie five grid answers to the Theme Answers, per the 2+2=5 formula.

What distracted me for the longest time were all those repeated letters in the first four long entries: EE NN, ST ST, CC, CO CO. Maybe the key was to "search out" other entries with them. I would guess that many solvers noticed that third row -- QUEEN ANNE and QUANT -- early on and sailed easily ashore.

You sunk my battleship!
Near miss. Much work to get off the EE-NN-CC paths. Discovered the 2 + 2 + 1 idea. But for some reason, (distractions of Sunday afternoon golf watching on TV?) was hung up on borrowed letter being from answers at the puzzle sides. Arrived at TETAS. Gave up anagram hunt, figured that 5 - 1 = 2 + 2 and we needed to lose a letter. Took the lone T out of EXACT. Left with ETAS, plural of ETA. Felt a bit better than Hail Mary.

Excellent puzzle. If no MUGGLE trophy in the cards, please consider us for a MUDDLE prize.
To the lifeboats!

Bird Lives wrote: ↑Mon Mar 02, 2020 8:30 am What distracted me for the longest time were all those repeated letters in the first four long entries: EE NN, ST ST, CC, CO CO. Maybe the key was to "search out" other entries with them. I would guess that many solvers noticed that third row -- QUEEN ANNE and QUANT -- early on and sailed easily ashore.

Same here. And then CO CO broke it open for me.

Luckily I zeroed in on the 5 in the title indicating to look at the 5 letter grid answers- of which there were many. PDQ exacT popped up and I saw the light. Gotta love those Xs in a grid.
I thought this was an interesting twist on a method we see regularly of a shorter grid answer +1/-1 letter being contained in a theme answer.
Nice going Matt.

https://youtu.be/UIKGV2cTgqA

First thing I thought of when I saw the puzzle title. What is this, some kind of new math?